Gita procured two cotton wool balls, spat on them and glued them to her ears. I’d have to try and replay everything the pointy-nosed astrologer had said the day before. A few things, though, Appa and Aamaa warned me, I couldn’t even share with Gita, especially with Gita.
The pointy-nosed astrologer had looked at me, back at my birth chart and then let his eyes wander around the rooftop. Exposed iron rods jutted out vertically from the edges of the terrace in desperation, for it would be a long time before we expanded our one-story house into a multistoried one, Appa’s dream before he retired from the British Army.
“Here, naani, eat this guava and go to play,” the astrologer had said to me.
I took the guava, small, green, and hard, and sat still. His order held no real authority, no threat. It was weak, like his voice, and like, as I’d soon discover, my birth chart.
“Not good,” he told Appa. “There’s a dosha on her chart—a kind of kala sharpa dosha. She will bring you bad luck for another few years.”
Appa frowned, the way he did when I asked him why he took my spot next to Aamaa in bed when he was in Kathmandu. Ever since he came back from Hong Kong on vacation, a slew of astrologers had confirmed what my birth chart clearly stated: that I was unlucky for Appa, that the house would not be completed until I was past fifteen and that I was accident prone and Manglik, which meant I’d have trouble finding a man to get married to.
“Bad luck?” Appa said. “What bad luck? I acquired this piece of land after she was born, began building this house after she was born. Those bastard British captains at the regiment began treating me like a human being after she was born.”
“All that might be true, but the next few years will be tough.” The priest scowled, his forehead wrinkling into six uniform lines. “Let’s see—she’s nine now. Even after the dosha ends, things will continue this way for five or six years. See, I could be like other priests and ask you to do an elaborate puja, but I won’t.”
Aamaa played with the loose end of her purple sari, the one she wore on special occasions at home. When outside, she wore her prettier, shinier silk saris, but inside, she often dressed in this purple one with a purple blouse, the purple-on-purple hiding—or at least taking attention from—the slight tear on her blouse shoulder.
“What is the solution then, Punditjee?” she asked. “I have gone to Manakamana, to Pashupatinath. If you can think of more temples, I will go to them, too.”
I bit my guava. It didn’t have much of a taste, so I almost threw it away. But I stopped myself because of the religious atmosphere at home. A priest, grains of uncooked rice sprinkled on the birth chart before the priest opened it, and the donning of special clothes convinced me that the fruit, an offering to God first, might be sacred. I balled it into my fist and concentrated on the white hairs sprouting from the pointy-nosed astrologer’s ears.
“I don’t believe in a puja to appease the gods,” the astrologer said dismissively. “What we can try to do is shift her bad luck to someone else—preferably a girl her age. Can you think of someone we can bind her in a miteri ceremony with? That could change things a little—not a lot, mind you, for there isn’t much we can do when one has a cheena this bad, and I am not one of those astrologers who believe that the course of a person’s fortune can be changed with rituals, but this we can try. I’ve done it a few times in the past, and it has mostly worked.”
Appa, still frowning, asked Aamaa for the red envelope they had earlier readied for the priest, stuffed another fifty-rupee note, bright and crisp, into it and told the pointy-nosed astrologer he’d be in touch shortly.
“I want to settle this problem before I head back to Hong Kong,” he said. “I haven’t been in any danger since the Gulf War, but they might have some useless war for me to fight again. They are the British after all. And it will be a long time before I am in Kathmandu. Thank you, Punditjee. We cooked quite a feast, but you perhaps don’t eat anything cooked by us Magars.”
“I am a new-age pundit.” The astrologer smiled proudly. “I don’t make distinctions based on caste like my fellow priests. As long as you didn’t prepare meat, I’ll eat everything.”
Appa and Aamaa both broke into such wide smiles that I could see Appa’s missing molar and Aamaa’s gold tooth.
“I’ll hurry downstairs and get the plates ready, then,” Aamaa said. “We don’t cook meat when we invite a priest to the house. Never.”
“Yes, and show me the house in the meantime—what little of it is complete anyway,” the astrologer asked. “Come, you little one, you unlucky one, let’s fill our stomachs before we think up ways to change your life.”
I got up, the guava still in my fist, and waited for Appa and the pointy-nosed astrologer to head down the stairs. Using all my strength, I bowled the guava, the same way I saw cricketers on TV do, out on the street, which was at the same level as the terrace, and almost hit a cyclist. He raised his arm menacingly at me. I waved back at him and laughed. The story would definitely make Gita giggle. She’d probably even suggest that we collect all the fallen guavas off the grounds near my half-constructed house and aim them at the steady traffic of pedestrians that went by the terrace. It could be another one of our secrets.
If the pointy-nosed astrologer could predict the future, I wondered if he’d know of my secrets—the smaller one with Aamaa, which Gita and her mother also knew, and the bigger one, the more important one, with Gita. Asking him would just arouse his suspicions. I’d have to ask Gita how to bring it up with him.
Gita was fair and clean and even brushed her teeth at night. She wore a maxi nightdress to bed and could run faster than any of us. She was better at pittu than the boys and so often completely toppled the tower of tiny stone slabs with her plastic ball that the boys always wanted her on their team. Gita was Gurung Bada’s daughter. Gurung Bada was Appa’s close friend from the regiment. Gurung Badi and my mother claimed they were related, but Appa, on more than one occasion, said that wasn’t true.
“These Darjeeling women jump to make everyone their relatives—never mind that they are of different castes and have not a drop of common blood,” he said a few days ago. “Tomorrow your Aamaa will look for that common blood in me. How can she even consider sharing the same blood as that child devil called Gita?”
I didn’t say a word in defense of my best friend’s monstrosity and instead conjured a memory of what she and I had indulged in the day before—Secret Number One, the bigger secret. Would Appa be angry if he found out? Aamaa would be petrified. She had warned me countless times that eating what had touched someone else’s mouth would cause boils all over my face. It was even worse than double dipping a samosa. I’d get both my ears pulled. And she’d complain to Gita’s mother, who could be a terror. Gurung Badi sometimes even beat Gita with her special stick, a gauri bet, the marks of which stubbornly stayed for days. But Aamaa would never find out. Gurung Badi would never find out. It was our big secret, and no one would find out.
It happened the first day of school after the winter break. Gita and I returned to my house from RIBS, our hated school, together. Once we turned eight, because we didn’t have to cross a street to get to the institution from my place, our mothers allowed us to walk to and from school by ourselves. Aamaa wasn’t in the house, and Appa was never home at this time when he was in the country, so we took the keys from the storekeeper down the street to find a steel bowl of cold Ra-ra waiting for me on the dining table.
“Firstselectiongreen!” Gita shouted once she saw the bowl, grazing the green on the door.
Had she not touched it, I’d have shown her my palm—where I squiggled in green every day for eventualities when the color would be out of reach—and yelled “Firstselectiongreen,” winning the opportunity to select between two portions into which I’d now divide the bowl of Ra-ra. Gita might not have employed the trick of wearing the color every day or scribbling with a green sketch pen on her palm, but she still regularly beat me to laying claim on the first selec
tion.
Disappointed at having lost, I pulled a stool to the shelves where the plastic bowls and mugs were stacked. I rinsed a bowl, and carefully, for Aamaa wouldn’t tolerate any spills on the dining table, I poured the soup from my bowl to Gita’s. Twirling the spoon that Aamaa had left facing downward by the bowl, I cautiously wrapped some curly strands of noodles on it and transferred them to the other bowl while Gita kept vigil to ensure that I wouldn’t sneak a spoonful into my mouth. I repeated the process and then stepped back to inspect the two bowls.
The bowl Aamaa had set for me now looked like it hadn’t as much of the noodles as the next, so I used my thumb and index finger to pinch some noodles from the plastic container to the steel one. More or less assured that both the bowls now contained equal quantities, I signaled to Gita that I was done with a thumbs-up.
Gita weighed one bowl in her right hand and then the other in her left. She went for the steel bowl, which Aamaa wouldn’t have approved of, for no guest, not even ill-mannered Gita, was to eat out of a steel bowl while I used a plastic one, a sacrilege, because plastic was meant strictly for guests.
But that wasn’t our big secret.
After we slurped the soup and licked the bowl as deep as our tongues would allow, Gita had an idea.
“Aren’t we best friends?” Her pretty blue eyes sparkled.
“Yes, we are.”
“Then let’s have a little ceremony to prove that.”
“What ceremony?” I was excited. It was Gita’s idea after all.
“You will spit into my bowl. Spit. Spit. Spit. And I’ll spit into yours. Spit. Spit. Spit. And when the bowls are filled to the brim, we shall both drink each other’s spit. That way we will have each other in our bodies. We will be real best friends.”
Arduous as the task was, we persevered. I generated spit from my throat, from under my tongue and summoned it from the depths of my stomach. Gita, despite having trouble, had already spat out far more than I did. My jaws acted funny, my tongue refused to cooperate, and my mouth felt the way it did when I didn’t brush my teeth on nonschool days. I coughed. I choked.
“I think the Ra-ra wants to come out from my stomach,” I said, afraid Gita would think me weak.
“Okay, then, this should be enough.” Gita gauged the depth of my bowl by inserting her little finger in the sea of spit. “Here, you drink this; I’ll drink that.”
And with three gulps—she with one, and I with two—we completed our first ceremony to seal our friendship.
If Aamaa found out, she’d probably borrow the gauri bet from Gurung Badi to give me the most severe beating of my life.
Would the pointy-nosed astrologer know what we did?
We needn’t have undergone the rigorous process of accumulating the last droplet of dribble from our bodies to mark our friendship. Our families, we’d later find out, would have put us through another ritual anyway.
A few days after the pointy-nosed astrologer left with his prediction of doom for me, Appa invited himself and the rest of his family to dinner at Gita’s place.
Appa said Gurung Bada was a jardiyaa, a drunkard, which wasn’t Gurkha-like at all. He often complained to Aamaa about the violent outbursts that accompanied Bada’s drinking and about how one of the two white men from the regiment had gotten wind of it and a few times given Bada a talking to.
“The fool is paving the shortest way to his funeral,” Appa said to Aamaa as he helped me get into the frilly new dress he had brought from Hong Kong. “Drink a glass or two, but no, we laureys, we Gurkhas, think drinking is our birthright. He thinks he can do anything because the Gurkha Sahib likes him. McFerron has threatened to report him to the higher-ups a few times.”
Aamaa listened quietly and looked at me, her eyes dancing. We exchanged a smile, a furtive smile between mother and daughter, about Secret Number Two. Aamaa and Gurung Badi often drank together. It was only fair, they’d remark in between gulps of Hit beer, that they be allowed a little release, for their husbands were away, and they were fulfilling the roles of both the parents in the house.
It didn’t seem harmful, the way they drank. Gurung Badi and Gita came to our place with a few bottles, and we’d listen to Bollywood songs on our old tape recorder. After a few cups, Gurung Badi danced, which never failed in bringing out peals of laughter from my mother. Gurung Badi was a comical dancer—she tried coordinating Nepali steps with Hindi beats, and no amount of teaching on Gita’s part would ever help her mother get it right.
When it was time for them to leave, Gurung Badi would stagger to the door, knocking a flower vase here or a shoe there, and Aamaa always asked her to stay. Gita and I slept together and spent half the night talking about school. Occasionally, we’d hear a giggle from the other room, which made us giggle, too. Drinking didn’t seem as destructive as Appa made it out to be.
We weren’t about to let Appa know, though—he wouldn’t approve. If he frowned on Gurung Bada’s drinking, a man’s drinking, Aamaa’s drinking would probably kill him. It may not have been as big a secret as my saliva exchange with Gita, but I guarded it as I did the bigger secret, promised myself every night—before falling asleep and asking God to take my bad luck away—that no one would know.
Tonight Appa was in the mood to drink.
“We don’t get to be together with friends and family this way,” he told Gurung Bada. “Your entire family and my entire family are here, Numberee, so tonight I will drink with you.”
Appa wasn’t even much of a social drinker. All of Aamaa’s family made fun of him, even in his presence, for not loving his drink despite being a Magar.
“Our ancestors must have invented the tongba,” they’d tease. “And here you are betraying your identity and caste.”
Appa smiled kindly at them and resumed taking very small sips of his liquor. There’d never be a refill. More often than not, he’d not finish the drink. But tonight he was already on his second glass.
Gita asked Gurung Bada if he had killed anyone on the battlefield. She always asked him that.
Gurung Bada looked at Appa and laughed.
“Killing is bad,” he said seriously, and burst out laughing.
“Yes, ask Ghale,” Appa said.
“Or Dilley.” Gurung Bada guffawed with Appa.
Our mothers looked on indulgently.
“Who are Ghale and Dilley?” Gita asked.
“Yes, Ghale and Dilley,” I repeated. “It’s like a rhyme.”
“Yes, a poem,” Gita said.
“Our daughters are such intelligent girls,” Gurung Bada said, taking a big gulp and placing the steel glass on the table with a thud.
“Unlike their old men,” said Appa. Hoary laughter followed.
“Yes, their old men are brothers. We are brothers.”
“You know what, Numberee?” Appa remarked. “We need to seal this relationship with a miteri.”
“Yes, you and I could be mit,” Gurung Bada said. “And every one of us will be related.”
“No, we are old. We don’t need a miteri connection. We already have it. How about our daughters? That would be perfect.”
Aamaa beamed. Gurung Badi beamed. Gurung Bada looked confused.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Your daughter will be my daughter’s mitini.”
Appa asked for another beer. Gita and I looked shyly at each other. Aamaa let go of the loose end of her shiny new sari—the one with no tear—and hugged Gurung Badi.
I performed my miteri ceremony with Gita a week before Appa and Gurung Bada headed back to Hong Kong. Gita and I would be bound in fictive kinship, the bond unifying our families. It was like the gods were listening to our prayers—we sometimes lied to our friends at school that we were cousins.
The pointy-nosed astrologer recommended a simple ceremony, while both our mothers desired to at least invite a couple of neighbors and other Gurkha families. Gita’s mother wanted the ceremony at her place, while Aamaa wanted it at ours. When Appa pointed out that we had a terrace conducive
to a havan and that the blessed pyre of fire was far more convenient to build outside, Gurung Badi complied. Our mothers also wanted to dress us in guniu-cholo, but the astrologer thought it was a silly idea.
“They haven’t even attained puberty,” he said. “That’s when you can have a proper guniu-cholo ceremony. Dress them in anything you want.”
“But in our community, it is different,” Gurung Badi declared.
“I am the priest here, so I’d like to do things my way,” the astrologer said. “I have to be comfortable. Don’t add your own rituals to mine.”
Gurung Badi glowered at him. In the end, the astrologer won.
The morning of the ceremony, Gita and I wore our new yellow dresses with butterflies on them that we’d bought with our mothers at the Bishal Bajaar Supermarket. Our dresses were similar except mine had half-sleeves, and Gita chose hers without them. The elders milled around us, hugging occasionally, looking on proudly, each vocally wondering why the good idea of binding us in miteri hadn’t struck him or her earlier, while the pointy-nosed astrologer read mantras on the opposite side of the sacred fire, into which he intermittently threw rice and gheeu. A bright yellow cloth extended from my waist to Gita’s. The astrologer from time to time asked us to repeat chants after him and had us cover our heads with our new hankies. We tried suppressing our laughter as the Sanskrit words trickled out of our mouths, halting and unsure.
“It’s like being married,” I whispered to Gita.
“Yes, but I am the wife because I am wearing a sleeveless dress,” Gita explained.
“Yes, you are,” I said, accepting.
The astrologer silenced us with a wave of the hand, and we stifled our giggles.
“Gita, please stand up and give the gift you’ve brought for your mitini and do the dhog to her.” He showed her how to do the dhog by bringing his own palms—with his wrinkly fingers pointed upward—together in front of his forehead. “Yes, that’s how you do it. You can also do it without smiling. And, you, naani, can you please do the same for your miteri without laughing?”
The Gurkha's Daughter Page 13